


la vie en rose

by recryption



Category: Eddsworld - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Character Swap, Enemies to Friends, Gen, Smoking, focuses around tom and tord. the others get SOME development but its not major, it's a blue leader au, more like enemies to "friends"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 12:09:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13166634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/recryption/pseuds/recryption
Summary: tom has always come and gone like a drifter in the harsh winds, always believed in Something More than himself, but tord would never have imagined that he would build himself into someone like this.(alternatively, the age-old parable: if you put a frog in boiling water, it will jump out immediately to save itself; however, if you heat the water slowly, it will be content to sit there and die.)





	la vie en rose

**Author's Note:**

> this is a blue leader au, as in, tom is the one with the giant robot and tord is the one that shoots him down. to say anything else would be spoilers :3c
> 
> i do use foreign languages in this fic and all the translations are [here.](http://mauvefactor.tumblr.com/post/168991291313/translations-for-la-vie-en-rose) if i messed up any of the words i'm sorry, i used google translate and some other digging to make sure i was right but i'm not a native speaker by any means

_i. le début_

 

_(In the beginning: there is a man in red and a man in blue. the two of them stand in the snow together, speaking about physics and idealism and why things happened the way they happened._

_In the beginning: the man in red asks why bad things deserve to happen to good people and the man in blue cannot find the words to form a response, but promises to try to keep the bad from happening anyway._

_In the beginning: there are gunshots and helicopters and a man in blue-stained-red and a man in red-stained-red lying together behind cover in an open field, trying to make it home while they bleed out from bullet wounds and shallow scars. The man in red-stained-red asks again why bad things deserve to happen to good people like them, and the man in blue-stained red asks if they really are good people -- if there are any good people._

_In the beginning: there is a blue car in September, and a conspicuous lack of a blue car in October._

_In the beginning-)_

\---

Tom is dressed plainly.

He’s in a dark blue hoodie, a black, army-style jacket tossed over it, standing on their front porch and drowning in the bright light spilling from the living room doorway. Warm yellows pour across the front yard, in sharp contrast to the cool April night. Tom’s standing there with a suitcase and his guitar case, like he had just been out late strumming a tune on the roof, the way he used to.

“Hey,” he says.

Tord slams the door in his face.

Tom knocks again, politely, exactly three times, while bile climbs Tord’s throat. His heart pounds hard in his chest, and he wonders-

What was he _doing_ here? When did Tom say- he was never supposed to have-

Most of Tord’s memories are hazy, but he remembers that harsh autumn and winter, that cold September that felt like it would never end, that day almost ten years ago when Tom packed his bags and left to make it big in a city that neither Tord, Paul, nor Patryck could even name.

Tom knocks again, more impatiently.

“Who is it?” Paul yells, from the kitchen.

“I got it,” Tord yells back, even though -- it had been years. It had been _years_ and Tom _dares_ to show up at their door like he had just gone grocery shopping and got held up at the checkout line, it had been _eight years_ and Tom was there on their porch like he had just been out a little too late getting vodka-

“Faen,” Tord mutters, half to himself. He opens the door, knuckles white against the doorknob.

“Relax, Tord,” Tom laughs. “It’s only me. Aren’t you glad to see old friends?”

“Is that Tom?” Patryck rushes down the stairs, his eyes lighting up seeing Tom standing in the doorway, glowing in that pool of warm yellow light. “Welcome back!”

“Welcome _back_?” Tord asks, incredulously.

“Did Patryck not tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“Oh, about that.” Patryck grins, sheepishly. “Sorry, you know I forget things -- I figured, I hadn’t talked to Tom in ages so I gave him a call and it turns out that he’s gotten a _lot_ of things done since he left- did you know, he joined the army again? I mean, I should let him tell the story-”

“I’m moving back in, Tord,” Tom says, cutting Patryck off. “Do you mind if I have my old room back?”

\---

(tord enjoys tom’s presence like he would enjoy being in a room of snakes.

tom smiles too lazily, laughs too condescendingly, is too comfortable around the subjects of war and violence and rebellion, walks and talks like he has nothing to prove because he had proven everything already-

it reminds tord of the army, really. it reminds him of how tom’s hands didn’t shake when he fired a gun for supposedly the first time, of the awful smirk that followed him like a ghost, of the way tom would always sneer like he knew something that nobody else did.

tord hasn’t taken a smoke break in weeks, but- that first day, he hastily excuses himself from the dinner table and steps out onto the porch in order to escape from that suffocating presence that filled the room like a boa constrictor.

eight years. _eight years_. tord exhales cigarette smoke as anger eats him from the inside out. he hated tom and his goddamn wicked smile and those black eyes and how tom’s words cut through tord like a hot knife through butter.

in the end, tord sleeps on the couch. even though tom’s room had been his for years, it would feel almost sickening to sleep within those blue walls now that he was back.)

\---

“How’d you get hurt?” Tom asks, almost amused.

Tord’s face is drawn in pain as he pats rubbing alcohol onto his knee scrape. Paul and Patryck hover around him like worried hens, with bandages and cold water and more alcohol, while Tom circles him more like a carrion vulture.

“You know perfectly well _why_ ,” Tord spits.

Tom had left his guitar case in the middle of the hallway, and Tord had tripped over it when he went to get water. The resulting crash had woken up Paul and Patryck and now, finally, Tom. His knee stings. His face burns from both anger and humiliation.

“Sorry, I don’t.” Tom narrows his eyes, looking at the scrape. “You’re using more alcohol than you need to. Just put a bandaid over it, you’ll be fine.”

“You left your guitar in the middle of the hall!” Tord finally notices the rubbing alcohol dripping down his leg from how tightly he’s squeezing the cotton ball. “Helvete, Tom! It was dark, why did you leave it there?”

“My guitar?” Tom looks vaguely bemused, but there’s the hint of a smirk, the impression of laughter, on his cold face. He looks out into the hallway. “My guitar’s in my room. It was just you being clumsy again, Tord.”

“What? No, I tripped over your guitar case.”

“Tord,” Patryck ventures, concerned. “Are you sure you weren’t… what, sleepwalking? Do you sleepwalk? I didn’t know that, you should’ve said!”

“I don’t sleepwalk!” Tord’s face is hot from frustration. “It was Tom!”

Tom gives in, chuckling. “You can’t blame your dreams on me, min venn.”

“You-”

“Classic, stupid Tord,” Tom laughs. “Open your eyes, next time.”

\---

Tord gets hurt more.

The most infuriating thing about it all is that he can’t _tell_ if Tom was doing it on purpose or not -- they were always just slight bumps too-hard into the wall, tripping Tord on the way to the kitchen table, they were scrapes and scars on his palms and ankles and arms that all could be passed off as simple coincidence and Tord can’t tell if they were purposeful at all-

Tom would apologize, of course; whether it was under his own volition, or because Patryck and Paul pressured him to, Tord never figured out either. He spends more time in the bathroom, cleaning off scrapes and cuts and bruises, that month than he feels like he has for his whole life beforehand, but Paul trusts Tom and Patryck could never get angry and Tom’s black eyes and flat mask refuse to give anything away.

Tord smokes. He feels like he’s going to get cancer by the end of the month, with how much he’s _smoking_. His hands hurt and his legs ache and the bandages wrapped around his hands and wrists only remind him of the snake curled up in their living room.

\---

“You’re not very good at making breakfast, are you, Tord?” Tom ambles into the kitchen. He wakes up early now, with the sun, rather than sleeping until noon like he used to. Tord scowls as he takes his burnt toast out of the toaster and throws it away.

“I do not know, Witness,” Tord spits. “You tell me.”

It had been the same exchange, every morning, for weeks, and Tord thought he was going to be able to keep it together at the beginning but every word Tom says to him is tipped with poison.

(A thought flits briefly through Tord’s head: if Tord was the one antagonizing Tom, he would never be able to do it so slowly, so carefully, so insidiously; his words would be swords rather than needles and he would hit Tom where it actually hurt rather than have this -- this war of useless attrition.)

“You don’t know much of anything,” Tom says, as he pours out a bowl of cereal. “As always, venn.”

“Like you do?”

“Well, at least I make breakfast right.” Tom laughs and Tord’s hands clench white under the kitchen table.

He forces himself to breathe in and ignore the steadily-growing rage gnawing at his insides, clawing at his throat. If only Tom had stayed in the city. If only he had kept his new city self and his new city mannerisms to himself. If only, if only-

(And it comes to Tord that he still doesn’t know why Tom decided to return.)

“Good morning, Patryck, Paul.”

Paul nods tiredly in acknowledgement and makes a beeline for the coffeemaker. Patryck grabs a bowl, but instead of taking the offered box of cereal from Tom, collapses onto the kitchen table.

“Not enough sleep?” Tord asks.

“Never,” Paul replies, while Patryck just groans loudly.

“Well, Tord burnt his toast again.” Tom grins. “Just like him, isn’t it?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you without,” Patryck agrees, smiling. Tom and Tord lock eyes for a millisecond, something wicked in Tom’s gaze. He had been pushing this war of words for weeks on end and Tord felt like he was about to finally lose it over a stupid _breakfast_.

“What about you, Paul?” Tom asks.

“Never.”

“See?” Tom chuckles. “Classic, stupid Tord.”

And Tord wants to strangle the words right out of him but Paul and Patryck are smiling too, obviously taking it all as a joke. Tord pushes his chair back with an awful scraping sound and slams the front door shut behind him, fumbling for his cigarettes in his pocket, and he knows that he had lost the battle again that morning, as he had for all of last week and the weeks before that.

\---

“I am going to move,” Tord announces, already halfway out the door with his suitcase.

“What?” Patryck almost jumps out of his seat, eyes wide and incredulous. He runs to Tord and looks him over like he was looking for some open wound that would’ve impaired Tord’s judgement. “Why? We’re all finally back together!”

“I’ve… been thinking about it for a while, actually,” Tord laughs, although he absolutely hasn’t been thinking about it for awhile and it all went back to _Tom_.

“Are you sure?” Paul’s voice is tinged with concern. “If something’s wrong- we’ve known each other for years.”

“I just need a change. Lived here for more than ten years, y’know?” Tord discreetly casts a glance at Tom, who’s looking back disinterestedly with his lidded black eyes. “I’ll still visit. It’s getting a bit too crowded around here, anyway.”

“Well…” Patryck looks doubtfully at Tord. “I mean- I can’t stop you, but if you’re sure…”

“If you’ve put enough thought into it.” Paul gets up and pats Tord on the shoulder. “Stay safe. I guess it can get claustrophobic around here.”

“You too, Paul.” Tord waves as he gets into his car, his suitcase at his side, and pulls out onto the street (the same way Tom did eight years ago). He tries not to look back.

\---

(he realizes too late that he had kept his old house keys, and they burn a hole in his pocket as he lives out of his car for a week, looking for affordable apartments while keeping himself out of the sight of paul and patryck and tom, on the rare occasions that tom even came out of the house.

he smokes most evenings, leaning against his car. there was something comforting in the familiar burning feeling of smoke in his lungs and in the air around him, and anyway, it was better the cigarettes that killed him than whatever tom would’ve pulled if he stayed at home.

paul and patryck call, but he never answers, and his phone gradually stops ringing completely, leaving him alone with his job and his car and his smokes and his keys.

it hurts, but he wouldn’t be the one to crawl back to them first.)

\---

He sees the report when he goes out to get a new pack of cigarettes.

The televisions dimly flicker in the store window, playing some age-old recording of a single news report, and Tord almost skims past it until he registers what he actually saw and he almost trips trying to turn around.

It's  _Tom_.

The recording is heavily pixelated, like it had been sent through three filters and an image compressor specifically to make it look unclear, but the scene it depicts isn’t very complex: a man in military garb and a gun strapped to his back steps onto a stage, two other soldiers armed similarly following him. The video cuts off, and the reporter talks about the “enigmatic Blue Leader” that had been stirring mild unrest in Britain, before he vanished from the public eye in March.

It's unmistakable. Those goddamn eyes couldn’t have been worn by anyone else. That goddamn _smirk_ couldn’t have been worn by anybody else. The television flickers once, twice, and the reporter zooms in on Blue Leader’s face and asks for help in identifying the leader of the civil unrest, before the recording loops back again.

Tord is running.

The house door is locked and he fumbles with his keys, forcing the door open and the house is silent except for the faint, harsh sound of metal grinding against metal. He kicks the door to Tom’s room open and _there he is_ -

Tom is standing in the middle of a silver-plated room that Tord doesn’t think he’s ever seen in his life. There is a wall of weapons on one side of the room and a wall of photos on the other. Some of the photos are crossed out in angry blue ink and Tord feels something almost like _fear_ , something almost like _fury_ , make its way through his veins.

“Tord,” Tom says. He does not look up from where he’s typing on some sort of metal panel, set into a steel counter. “Pleasant surprise.”

“I- I saw you,” Tord spits, still out of breath. “On the news. What did you _do_ ? Why are you _here_?”

“I haven’t done much, yet.”

“ _Yet_?”

Tom finishes typing, but he doesn’t turn to face Tord, and Tord notices too late that Tom is grinning so widely, so _sickeningly_ -

“I only came back to get something I left behind.”

There is no fanfare -- no joke, no punchline, just a red button and the harsh, harsh scraping sound of metal against metal and Tord is running again.

A hail of bullets pours through the walls and floods the hall and Tord feels like his chest might burst and Tom is laughing metallically behind him from the cockpit of a blue-plated robot.

“I didn’t think it’d be you who found out,” Tom admits. Tord drops to his knees, hiding behind half-ruined walls and hoping that Tom didn’t notice him, hoping that he could get to his guns, his rifles, hoping he could salvage some sort of weapon from Tom’s silver room-

“It’s always been classic, stupid Tord, right?” Sick laughter. “But this time you came through! You put two and two together.”

Tord crawls slowly towards Tom’s room -- there were rifles there, guns, rocket launchers, he had _seen_ them-

“Tom? What are you-”

“Sorry, Patryck. I just couldn’t leave this behind!"

“Leave- Tom, what are you _doing_ ?” That’s distinctly Paul, with fear palpable in his voice, and Tord’s made it. His heart pounds as he digs through the bullet-soaked rubble of Tom's room for something, a weapon, _anything_ -

Tord’s hand grabs the handle of- he sees it, past the torn-up shrapnel- a rocket launcher, and something almost like hope buoys his heart upwards before there is a glimpse of blue outside the window that moves steadily towards the house and Tord sees it too late-

“I can’t have somebody stopping me, though.”

The world goes white.

\---

Tord flickers in and out of consciousness.

Most of his limbs feel numb. There’s a searing sensation in his left arm that he feels from a million miles away, but that doesn’t bother him as much as the conspicuous _nothingness_ that he feels in his fingers, his hands, his feet and his legs.

He can barely move. It’s dark. It’s as if he is Atlas, bearing the weight of the world, except he’s finally lost that war of attrition and was crushed by the burden of it all, and his fingers flex and he’s still holding onto the handle of something buried deep in the rubble. He’s tempted to let go. He wants to just return to inky numbness until someone finds him, but-

 _tomblueleaderblueleaderblueleaderpaulpatryckrocketrocket_ **_rocketrocketROCKET-_ **

His left hand clenches around the handle and he _pulls_ and his entire arm feels like it’s detaching from its socket but his throat is too dry to even scream about it. There’s the shifting, the crashing of rock, and his arm is free but so painful but it’s a reminder that he’s _alive_ . Tord nestles the weapon to his side and _pushes_ upwards and something shifts and his legs are free but there it _i_ _s_ , the glimmer of light and the promise of hope-

“So long, old friends!” There is something _cruel_ in Tom’s laughter (there was always something cruel about it, but it had never been so prominent before), and Tord realizes that he’s been left for dead, that Paul and Patryck are out there and they can’t do anything, and Tom was leaving, going back to whatever-the-hell his _Blue Army_ was (what had Tom done in the city? what connections did he make in the army? where was the Tom he used to know, who had replaced him?), and he _realizes_ that there is still one thing he knows past the white pain and it was that-

 _He was not Tom’s friend_.

Tord _screams_ it and the words break his voice and claw at the insides of his throat and his right arm is still numb and his legs shake and threaten to give out but he pushes his way out of that damned rubble and onto his knees and his hands can’t stop shaking but he sees the robot as the clay pigeon that it is and the trigger is almost too hard to pull and the recoil snaps his arm back until it feels like it might actually tear out of its socket-

The explosion leaves stars dancing in Tord’s eyes.

“Tord!” Paul and Patryck yell, and Tord winces as he’s pulled to his feet. Paul’s already frantically dialing 999 even though Tord's sure that every police officer in their city must’ve seen _some_ of what happened-

“Are you okay?” Tears stream down Patryck’s face and he realizes that Tord’s collapsing and he eases him to sit down against a pile of rubble, his face rapidly flicking between Tord and the debris still raining from the sky. “I should’ve- how did you know? When- Was that really Tom? Are you _okay_?”

“I told you,” Tord rasps, mouth still feeling like a desert wasteland. “Those shooting lessons would be useful.”

He promptly passes out to a waiting darkness.

* * *

_ii. le premier entracte_

 

The rumbling car engines give Tom a headache.

Edd and Matt look horrified as they run up to him, bandages already clutched tightly in their white-knuckled hands. They help him get the debris from his failed project off of him. They pry out shrapnel from his arm and face. Blood slicks the grass red and stains his blue hoodie and Tom feels ~~something close to _fear_~~ something close to _fury_ boil his blood and tear apart his insides.

He does not cry when Edd pours alcohol over his newly-useless arm even though it burns so badly that he feels like he might die. He didn’t have a right to it -- not after that failure, after that _pathetic_ excuse for a human, Tord, shot him out of the sky, not after that pitiful mission and his stupid mistakes-

He would do better. He _had to_ do better. He was _Blue Leader_ and he does _not_ , he would _never_ , let some insignificant roommate slow his plans. Nobody did. _Nobody did_.

Tom’s legs shake as he gets to his feet. Edd and Matt wisely keep their mouths shut and their helping hands away from him. He uses his good arm to pick up one of the broken metal arms from his _mistake_ and knows there’s no choice left in the matter.

“We’ll wait in the car, sir,” Edd mumbles, and Tom scowls and waves him off. He staggers to the edge of the cliff and watches the sun set over the remains of his old household. The faint silhouettes of ambulances and firetrucks drive up the hill and pick his old friends up and out of the rubble. The steaming remains of his mech cloud the sky in black smoke.

Tom doesn’t think he’s ever felt so angry before.

* * *

_iii. le milieu_

 

 _(In the end: there is an exhausted man in blue, trying to figure out why bad things deserve to happen to good people, and a furious man in red, trying to figure out why bad things deserve to happen to_ him _._

_In the end: the man in red looks at what the man in blue has done and asks, “How could you do this?” The man in blue can only say, “It was what deserved to happen.”_

_In the end: there’s nothing to say._

_In the end: there’s nothing to say, only things to change-)_

\---

It’s a bit too much to take in, at first.

Tord is lying in a white bed in a white room with a vase of bright red roses (his favorite color) at his bedside table. Men in white coats and white masks pass in and out of his vision, whispering terms that Tord doesn’t entirely understand: multiple comminuted fractures, scapular fractures, humeral fractures, a shattered metacarpal, stitches up his left arm-

They say that it’s a miracle that he survived. They say the human body is, of course, very resilient, but there should've been no way that his hands or arms were in any proper condition to aim and shoot a rocket launcher without help. They call him a miracle, they call Tord a _miracle_.

Paul and Patryck are there, sometimes, with perpetually worried looks and drawn faces and Tord can’t help but wonder why. It was over, after all. He had shot Tom. _He had shot Tom_.

A week passes -- then two, then three, and Tord fights through them all, a furious ghost of red in those sterile white sheets. He gets released in casts and bandages and is given a list of instructions on how to care for his fragile stitches and healing bones. His entire body aches when he moves, but- that night, with terrible Chinese takeout and a gory movie playing on the television and Paul and Patryck arguing about its merits (or lack of them), Tord doesn’t think he’s ever felt more at home.

\---

Tord can’t say that he likes the new apartment.

Logically, of course, Paul and Patryck live right across the hall. They knock on Tord’s door all the time to ask if he wants to go out and see new movies or binge all of their old favorites or come over and have a drink and talk, and Tord always accepts, but it never really feels the same.

There’s a strange layer of distance between them that there never was before. Patryck and Paul tiptoe around the subject of Tom, pick their words carefully around Tord to avoid mentioning What Had Happened, and Tord _hates_ being treated like a glass figurine but _Tom, den j_ _ævel kunne gå til helvete-_

The moment he moves in, he paints the walls a garish color of red, the farthest shade away from blue that he could possibly imagine. Tord erases any hints of that _blue_ that suffocated him like a fucking boa constrictor and tries to drown What Had Happened in cigarettes and alcohol. He dreams of rocket launchers and of Tom’s neck in his hands and of smoke and rubble and metal and of an ocean of dark blue pulling him under and inevitably ends up sitting on the roof, with a cigarette and a bottle of beer, too many thoughts pounding at his already-fragile skull. All he can think about is of _tearing_ Tom apart, of _breaking_ him, mangling his body and legacy and Tord’s own memories until there’s absolutely _nothing  left_ -

He burns through too many cigarettes on the roof and gets into too many fights at downtown bars, trying to delude himself into thinking that one of those drunkards would eventually become Tom, even though he knows that Tom died that May afternoon, and should have no right to take up so much space in Tord’s head. Tom was just -- an _old friend_. That was it. That was all he had the right to be.

\---

(sometimes, though-

especially when he’s drunk as hell and half-asleep on his couch-

tord remembers tom with more wistfulness, than anything else.

he remembers drunk discussions on the roof, about ridiculous ideologies and science and what it would take to fix the world and tom’s silver tongue- his words were always attractive, appealing, and tord couldn’t help but fall in love with his beliefs. his speeches were passionate even when he was drunk, the words carefully chosen and his _ideas_ , god-

it was no surprise that he had gathered some sort of a following behind them -- after all, every snake has some good in it, no matter how little.)

\---

The Blue Army is slow, insidious, and fear (and admiration) of it grips the minds of the public seemingly overnight.

Tord doesn’t notice it, at first -- but then there are stories passed under the tables of bars, whispers of _change_ and of _something great_ on the horizon, stories of the great Blue Leader and his loyal commanders and the articles they publish online that raises their viewcount every day. There are rumors of secret meetings and secret memberships and when the whole hurricane finally hits the local television stations-

“His pictures are not in the news,” Tord says, in disbelief.

“Are you in most recently?”

“Look at the search yourself!” It was the same pixelated picture, the same recording of one of Tom’s speeches, from months ago. “These _are_ the most recent results-”

“There’s no way!” Patryck grabs the mouse from Tord, fruitlessly clicking the top links, in the vain hope of finding any news at all. “They’re all just- Blue Leader hasn’t been seen since last March-”

“But his army is everywhere!” Tord gets up, pacing. “I know Tom, he would’ve made _some_ sort of public appearance again-”

“It has to be a different person, now,” Paul reasons. “Tom’s _dead_ , you shot him-”

“He wouldn’t have died,” Tord insists. “You _know_ -”

“The robot blew up-”

“You _know_ he wouldn’t have.”

Paul looks torn. Tord collapses on the sofa. So it was, then: Tom Redwood was gone, and that was the end of it. Tom Redwood was _gone_ , and that was the end of it.

\---

Tord smokes himself to death on the roof of that apartment complex over the winter.

Blue army members walk the streets below him -- that was common, nowadays. They were never obvious, really; no uniforms, no discernible signs of membership, but you couldn’t turn your head without seeing people dressed in accents of blue, coldly cordial, greeting you with polite distaste and a distinct sense of superiority. They carried themselves with a strange air of confidence, some aura of self-security, that made you wonder if joining the Blue Army was less about changing the world and more about changing _yourself_ -

Patryck refuses to harbor any thoughts of joining, no matter how many rumors he hears about underground meetings, how many persuasive articles he finds online. Paul reads the news with unconcealed disgust and refuses to look at the men crawling the streets. Tord, though…

Tord watches and waits and listens for news like it was the end of the world and he was a nuclear survivor searching desperately for help, and for once, one of his ventures finally pays off-

\---

He first sees him standing in the entrance of a cafe across the street, holding the door open for somebody inside, and Tord feels like he might have a heart attack.

Tom’s dressed for the weather, in a dark blue coat zipped up to protect him from the January snow, a scarf tossed half-heartedly around his neck. He motions at the person inside, then laughs inaudibly, raising a hand to cover his mouth, before walking down the street. Two other men run to catch up with him.

The three of them laugh and talk with each other at the bus stop and nobody else seems to recognize them. They act- normally. Blue Army members give them waves, salutes at most, but everyone else just flows around them like a river around a rock and Tord feels like he might be dreaming but there was _Tom_. There was the dead Blue Leader. There was the man who had haunted him for the past six months of his life-

The bus comes. Tom is out of Tord’s sight before he can even think about raising his voice.

\---

Tom’s voice rings out clearly over the roar of the crowd but Tord’s blood is rushing in his ears too loudly for him to hear or concentrate on anything besides pushing his way forward, desperately trying to catch a glimpse of Blue Leader, of who _Tom_ had become in those precious years between their last meetings-

The sun illuminates Tom from behind, setting the tips of his brown hair aglow and turning his already-dark eyes even darker. His commanders stand at attention behind him. Rumors circulate of guns underneath their coats, of knives in their boots, of the unsettling way that _Blue Leader_ grinned. Tom’s speech hangs in the summer heat and the crowd _craves_ it, drinks in the words like a band of thirsty wanderers at that elusive desert oasis, but Tord can’t focus on anything but Tom and his mangled face, the way he motions towards the sky like some mythical prophet, illuminated by God’s blindingly white light-

“What d’you say?” Tom yells, and the crowd _roars_ like it’s alive, like a snoring beast awakened from its slumber, and Tord stands wide-eyed in that swirling ocean of people throwing their fists and voices and hearts into the sky and Tom _locks_ eyes with Tord for a millisecond, grinning wickedly like they had just shared some clever inside joke.

Tord's heart stops.

Tom sweeps off the makeshift bench-as-a-stage before Tord can yell with a flick of his coat and a wave of his hand, his commanders coming at his call immediately. They fend off the surging crowd and Tord rushes forward but Tom’s already slipped away into the twisting streets of the city, like he had never been there at all.

\---

Tom’s face is finally on the news.

His visage glows proudly on the screen, half-covered in burn scars, and he preaches hymns and sings sonnets about his beliefs and goals and what he would be willing to do to get there. He promises transparency and change, he promises the death of corruption, he promises everything, it seems, but perfection itself-

Tord watches the speech, half-entranced, half-disgusted, by Tom’s words ringing in his ears. He remembers a robot and a rocket and his broken limbs and he wonders what the public would think of their proud Blue Leader after _that_.

\---

Tom fends off reporters and questions and the ravenous people as he makes his way through the crowd as dense as the thick December snow, his two commanders struggling to both push the congregation aside and follow Tom to their car.

Tord watches from the sidelines. He fights the urge to rush up to Tom, to grab him and ask _what have you been doing? what is the Blue Army? what did you hide from me and Paul and Patryck? what are you still hiding from people now? what do_ you _want out of this? what- what-_

Blue Leader's disappeared already. Tord’s thoughts echo uselessly in his head, breaking apart and crackling like the feedback from a wrecked radio.

\---

Tom is sitting on the park bench, alone, scrolling through something on his phone. He’s not in his uniform, there is no crowd swarming him, his commanders are nowhere to be seen, and Tord is just across the street. He’s so close as to almost be _tangible_ in Tord’s grasp, and all Tord can hear is the too-familiar ringing in his ears and the saccharine words of Blue Leader, the saccharine name of Tom, Tom, _Tom_ -

\---

Tom is dressed plainly.

He’s in a dark blue windbreaker, his face red from the biting September winds that had plagued the city and finally chased him to Tord’s doorstep. The warm lights spilling from Tord’s apartment illuminate the proud Blue Leader in gentle yellows, softening his features and making him look younger and far more pleasant than he really was, but the scars coating the left side of his face couldn’t have been clearer and his eye looks damn well useless and Tord remembers, _god,_ does Tord remember-

“Hey,” Tom says.

Tord doesn’t slam the door, this time, looking at Tom in numb shock.

Tom steps inside. Tord closes the door behind them.

“It’s interesting what two years can do, venn.” Tom sits delicately on the edge of one of Tord’s kitchen chairs, his hand going up to pick at the scars crossing his face in deep rivulets of brown and beige and red and Tord remembers that May, the explosion, the blue and gray shrapnel strewn across his front yard, and-

“Faen ta deg,” Tord says, but it’s hollow.

“Anything else?”

“I- we thought you were dead.” Tord looks at Tom, sitting at his kitchen table like he had just been out late, playing guitar on the roof like he always used to-

“The human body is very resilient.” Tom crosses one leg over the other and sighs, smiling. “I do prefer being alive, though.”

“There’s no way you survived the explosion.”

“I’m here now, aren’t I?”

“You’re Blue Leader.” Tord suddenly glances over Tom, checking for weapons, but there didn’t seem to be any visible -- nothing was revealed in his languid posture, his relaxed words, his hands (one distinctly human, the other distinctly cold blue metal and separated joints) laced together loosely in his lap. “You’re- we all thought you were _dead_.”

“You’ve said that, already.” Tom’s wicked smile shrinks for a second, but he repairs his mask quickly. “I’m a little worse for wear, but I’m fine.”

“Your face is- it’s destroyed. And your hand-”

“This?” Tom pulls down his left sleeve and Tord sees sleek panels of blue, an uncanny-valley of realistic movement, a red orb embedded into the palm of Tom’s prosthetic that _glows_ as he flexes his metal fingers in self-satisfaction and Tord feels like he’s about to throw up.

“It’s a memory. An improvement, you could say.”

“You- I-”

“You did this, yes. I just fixed the damage.”

“What do you _want_ .” Tord is sickeningly fascinated with the arm, the way it moves so smoothly, so _realistically_ \-- it drapes itself lightly over Tom’s knee, gently humming, gleaming in the warm kitchen light-

“Just to visit old friends, Tord!”

“ _Tom_ -”

“I imagine you’d want to know about the Blue Army, right?”

Tord stays quiet. Tom grins.

“I didn’t think it’d pick up so quickly, but -- I guess herd mentality has its uses.”

“That’s not telling me what your _Blue Army_ \- what do _you_ want?”

“Change, of course.” Tom spreads his arms. The yellow light glints off his metal hand, softens the features on his scarred face. “I thought that was a given.”

“For what? Your own benefit? Control over people? Some-”

“I want to do what’s best for the people.” Tom’s voice and hands drop. “And I don’t like the implication that I have ulterior motives.”

“Nobody moves into politics and builds a giant robot _without_ ulterior motives.”

“Well, I’m going to fix society.” Tom leans back in his chair, returning to his refuge in a facade of ease. “You’ve heard the story of the frog in the boiling water. People like us are all frogs, and we’ve been facing the same flaws for so long, we can’t imagine a life outside of it.

“I want to fix it, Tord. And if I can’t do it upfront, I’ll do it from behind the scenes. And I want people like you -- you’re _passionate_ , if anything. Stupid, for sure, but-”

“I’m not going to join you, faen! Is that what you want?” Tord gets up, laughing, raking a hand through his hair. The prospect of- working under Tom, listening to his orders and ideals and his speeches, god Tord was desperate for change but was he _that desperate_ -

(Something in him hurts, badly, telling him that he _was_ and doesn’t he _remember_ all those conversations years ago, how they had agreed to change the world-)

Tom spreads his hands and says nothing.

“Faen, Tom, you think I’m going to join some _venn_ like you- helvete, hvem tror du at du er?”

“You _want_ to join me.”

“What?” Tord’s voice dies in his throat.

“You want to, but you can’t bear to admit it,” Tom factually states. His black eyes are sharp under the yellow light and something snaps in Tord.

“I don’t care about _you_ or your _army_ and you really feel that entitled, to think that-”

“If you really didn’t care, you wouldn’t be swearing at me in Norwegian. I think I’m someone who’s going to change the world, Tord, and I’m inviting you to join me because I think you can make a difference. Get over your own pride, for once, and follow through on the promises we made before I left.”

(And it comes to Tord in a flash: how Tom had gotten an army to follow him with just his voice and his oil-spill eyes, how he had preyed on the feelings of thousands in his silvertongued speeches and saccharine words and for a few, brief moments, Tord _wants to_ -

but there was smoke and metal and Tom’s wicked smile, as he thinks that he’s won, stretching too-wide across his face-)

“Get out,” Tord says, the words almost getting caught in his throat because he’s not sure if he really believes them, he’s not sure if he would be able to stop himself from following Tom and his naive dreams of change out the door-

Tom’s eyes widen, and Tord knows that he’s won, but the victory leaves a sour taste in his dry mouth.

“...what, Tord?”

“I said it. Leave. Get _out_.” Blood rushes through his ears. He wants to choke Tom with a rope, drown him in the bathtub, he wants to claw Tom out of his mind and never think about him again, he wants, he wants-

Something in Tom’s composure cracks and Tord can see anger, real _anger_ , flash in those black eyes and for a few, precious moments, Tom looks like he’s ten years younger, still in high school, dreaming of unreachable ideals and having them shattered before his eyes by the reality of what the world really was.

“Skjerp deg, gammel venn,” Tom hisses.

The door slams shut, and Tord stays anchored to the ground.

* * *

_iv. le deuxième entracte_

 

The whisky bottle shatters with the pull of Tom’s trigger, cheap alcohol spilling over the curb and draining into the gutter. Tom takes another swig of the vodka at his side. He was already slightly buzzed when he drove his car out to an abandoned rest stop and set rows of half-empty bottles along the curbside so he could shoot at _something_ to relieve his tension, but at the rate his alcohol was being drained, he would probably need to call Edd or Matt to pick him up. It was alright. They were his friends, they had seen him drunk more than once. Hell, they were probably out drinking themselves-

 _Crack_ . Another bottle bursts into shards. Tom takes another sip. It was less about precision, now, and more about getting drunk and pretending Tord was the breaking bottle and forgetting the way his _pitiful_ roommate had swept aside his generous offers, what a weak-willed _idiot_ , only classic, stupid Tord would reject the opportunity to work at the side of the man making the greatest change in the world since the goddamn American Revolution-

 _Crack_ . Another bottle bursts into shards. Tom takes another sip. Tord’s passion and anger and fear just needed to be redirected -- _god_ , does Tom know that Tord could do just about anything if he put his mind to it, and _that_ was the kind of person he needed because good followers were great but good leaders were _essential_ -

(And, of course, Tom realizes that there is some degree of irony in working hand-in-hand with someone who had tried to kill him before but only ended up making him stronger than ever before.)

 _Crack_. He’s down to the last few bottles, now, and he’s pleasantly drunk but still a dead shot. Tord would make such a good commander, such a good advisor, such a good confidant -- he had shot Tom out of the sky like a clay pigeon even after being crushed by the weight of the world, he had brought the great Blue Leader to his knees and covered him in blood and scars and scrap metal-

Tord just needed a little bit of extra motivation.

The last bottle shatters in a wicked explosion of glass and Tom redials Edd’s number three times before he finally gets it right.

“Tom!” Edd’s worried voice filters through the phone. “Are you alright? Matt’s been driving around looking for you-”

“Edd,” Tom slurs, “we’re leaving.”

* * *

_v. la fin_

 

_(Finally, in revision: there is a furious man in blue patching holes in a rapidly-breaking dam and trying to stop bad things from happening to “good” people, and an exhausted man in red who wants desperately to help but can’t see the point of it all._

_In revision: the man in blue holds a sinking ship together through pure force of will and tells the man in red to get up. The man in blue asks, “How can you just sit there?” The man in red replies, “It is what deserves to happen to us.”_

_In revision: the man in blue says, “I thought you were better than this.” The man in red says, “I thought you were worse.”_

_In revision: the man in blue drags the man in red to his feet and puts a caulk gun in one of his hands and a real gun in the other and tells him to goddamn pick._

_In revision: is there a choice?)_

\---

“I brought beer.”

Tord wordlessly holds his hand out, and Paul hands him the cold bottle before sitting down next to him on the roof. The sunset is gentle, pale orange clouds splattered like paint across the sky. Paul looks older than he is in the warm light that highlights his smile lines and the dark stubble on his chin.

“Takk for sist,” Tord remarks.

“Mm,” Paul hums. He lights a cigarette, exhaling gray into the fading sky. “Want a smoke?”

“Been trying to break the habit.”

“Unnskyld meg, da.”

The two of them pop open the beer bottles together and sit in comfortable silence.

“Where’s Patryck off to?” Tord asks. He swirls the liquid in the brown bottle around half-heartedly. Paul didn’t get anything other than beer when he went on alcohol runs, to Tord’s disappointment, but it was better than nothing.

“Got a date with some boy on Tinder.”

“Did you run background checks?”

“You think I background check every guy that Pat tries out, even when he gives up on them after the first date?”

“Well, I figure-”

“Of course I do, Tord!” Paul chuckles, waving him off. “No, I just go through their profiles. Make sure nothing’s too skeevy. Pat has a pretty good eye most of the time, anyway.”

“He tries to keep himself out of trouble.”

“Street smarts over book smarts, right?”

“Well, he has to have _something_ going for him,” Tord jokes.

“Tord, that’s mean,” Paul protests, punching Tord in the arm. Tord laughs.

“I have not seen you in a while,” Tord says, taking another sip. Paul sets his bottle down on the roof next to him. “You don’t come knocking anymore, like you usually do on weekends.”

“I’ve been working.”

“Your job has you on weekends? I thought it was an office job.”

“They’ve been having us prepare for a move to a different building. Longer commute for me, but I can’t really argue with the company. I’m getting overtime, anyway.”

“As long as it pays the bills.”

“Could say that much.” Paul chews on his cigarette. He was always chewing on something -- his pens, his cigarettes, his fingernails. Tord had tried to get Paul to explain why, before, but Paul had just dismissed it as a bad habit like smoking and promised to break it sooner or later. He had never really carried through.

“Y’know, Tord, I’m worried,” Paul says, suddenly. He had never been one for small talk, and Tord’s heart drops. He wishes he was with Patryck, instead, who could talk himself in circles for hours.

“Worried?” Tord asks, feigning nonchalance.

“You know what I’m talking about.”

Tord sighs. The sunset glows, turning from shades of pale orange into fiery reds. He thinks about Blue Leader and that cold September evening and how Tom had told him to pull himself together, to sharpen himself up. For a brief moment, Tord regrets that his younger self insisted on teaching all his friends basic Norwegian to make it easier for them to communicate.

“The Blue Army?”

Paul shifts, clearing his throat uncomfortably. He picks at the loose threads on his jacket sleeve. “I saw… him. On the news, again.”

“He’s always on the news, nowadays.”

“They say he’s moving.”

“What?” Tord pauses, glancing at Paul.

“Moving. His base of operations. Finally getting out of our town.” Paul punctuates his statement with a long drag of his cigarette. “Better late than never, but I figured you’d like to know.”

“...I see.”

(Blue Leader knocks on Tord’s door with a scarred face and a sleek metal arm and asks Tord to join his army in what must’ve been a fit of madness.)

The fiery red sun settles into a deeper maroon, and the clouds turn black against the horizon. Tord’s bottle clinks loudly against the cement roof as he finally sets it down.

“I just want you to be careful,” Paul sighs, turning Tord towards him so they can make eye contact. Tord stiffens. “We already lost… him, y’know?”

(Blue Leader knocks on Tord’s door with a scarred face and a sleek metal arm, asking Tord to join his army, and Tord almost says yes.)

“I’m gonna call Patryck,” Paul finishes, giving Tord a final look. “It might snow tonight, and I don’t think he brought his heavy coat. Promise you won’t do anything too stupid, right?”

“Of course,” Tord agrees, something heavy in his chest.

Paul claps Tord on the shoulder. “Good on you.” He gets to his feet, drops his cigarette, and stamps it out before ambling back towards the stairs.

(Blue Leader knocks on Tord’s door-)

“Du vet jeg er glad i deg, rett?” Tord chokes out. It comes out too harsh, too sudden, and there’s the gnawing thought in the back of his head that it might be the last time to let Paul _know_ -

“Jeg vet, venn,” Paul replies, startled. He pauses at the steps. “Selvfølgelig.”

“I just wanted to make sure,” Tord says, as hollow justification. “I… we’ve known each other for a long time, and I thought- what, with everything happening-”

“You’re rambling, Tord. ” Paul smiles faintly. "Jeg er glad i deg også. Vær trygg og vel, rett?”

(Blue Leader knocks _insistently, repetitively, over and over and over_ -)

\---

(“you’re still here,” tom says.

the two of them walk down the snowy street together. the lamplights glow coldly in the white air. tord is apprehensive -- it feels like a storm is about to come on, but the snow is still gentle and tom’s eyes are more placid than tord has ever remembered them being before.

“so i am.”

“i could’ve been you,” tom says, the hint of laughter in his voice. his figure blurs -- from snowflakes, to tom, back into snow. “tired, angry, selfish.”

“so you could’ve.”

“you could’ve been me.” tom warps, over and over again, consistently, repetitively, over and over and over. “tired, tired, tired.”

“jeg vet,” tord replies. he is so exhausted and the air is so cold.

“it wouldn’t have been hard.”

“jeg _vet_ , min gamle venn.”

“and yet…” tom does not smile, but the amusement lacing his voice like poison grows. “å være, eller ikke å være, det er spørsmålet.”

“la meg være i fred. vær så snill.”

“ah, gammel venn… ting endres aldri.” the wind picks up and tord lunges at tom, but tom’s disappeared in the unforeseen blizzard and tord’s eyes are hungry, his hands the claws of predators, as he seeks _him_ out but nobody’s walking at his side anymore-

tord wakes up in a cold sweat, hands tensed tightly, fingers curled around tom’s imaginary neck as he shivers. he had kicked off his blankets in the middle of november -- no wonder he's cold. no wonder it had been snowing in his dream.

…

he hadn’t dreamt in norwegian in so long.)

\---

 ~~Blue Leader doesn’t knock~~.

Sure enough, the news stations pack up, the television channels turn back to their normal schedules, and Tom vanishes back into the wind, showing up only in recordings of his previous speeches posted on Youtube or in his word choices being over-analyzed on conspiracy boards in the depths of the Internet. Tord is faced with the question: to be, or not to be-

Tom is going south, probably towards London. Tord could follow. It's likely that other Blue Army members would follow, if they could find where Tom had disappeared to, and Tord would just be a face in the crowd, then. He knows that people would follow that stone mask of Blue Leader anywhere. He knows _why_ they would follow him anywhere: his silver tongue and sugary words and the revolution he kept tucked as a weapon by his side-

Tord hasn’t stopped thinking about September.

…

Maybe, if he started over, he would finally be able to make a real _difference_ the way Tom had promised he could, and what ties did he hold to his hometown anyway? There was Paul and Patryck and _god_ , they were important, but he could stamp down those feelings and anyway, he imagined that if they knew the lofty ambitions he had and what he wanted to accomplish, they would support his decision-

His pride hurts. He would be crawling back to Blue Leader in the end. He would be crawling back to _Tom_ the way he promised himself he wouldn’t and what would Paul and Patryck think of that and did those thoughts _matter_ in the end-

~~And briefly, very briefly, he’s glad that he said to Paul what he did.~~

\---

There is no fanfare -- no joke, no punchline, just Tord quietly packing away his things, leaving a note, and marching out to his car in the worst blizzard of December he had seen in years.

He clutches his dark trenchcoat around him, the ends of it dragging in the dirty ankle-high snow, as he forces a passageway to his car. He sighs in relief as the heater turns on. It would be a pain to drive to London in this weather, but-

Tord had seen the news, that morning. It was a blurry video of a new speech given by Blue Leader the evening before, where he talked about moving on from your past and working towards something that bettered the world around you rather than staying confined to your own life, and if you had no idea where to start, why not the Blue Army?

(And Tord knows better than anyone that it was propaganda, but he had been feeling so stagnated for so long, confined to the little red box of his apartment and the gray roof he sat on in the evenings, and if he could make a difference in someone's life, even if it was his own-

Well, if Tom could be the good omen, the catalyst, for so many others, why wasn’t Tord allowed to take the bait as well?)

The streets had thankfully been kept relatively clear, and Tord peels out of the parking lot, driving down the quiet early-morning roads. The air has a certain muffled quality to it; every noise he makes seems to be dulled by the heavy sleet, and as his GPS reads out directions to him, he settles in for the long drive. The radio stations play old pop songs and ads for long-recalled products and the streetlamps pour occasional bursts of yellow light into his car.

\---

He cuts his hair.

It had been ages since he had cut his hair professionally -- he had always just cut it with scissors, himself, or asked Paul to cut it for him when it got too long, but he sits through the mind-numbing hour and gets it done at last and walks out into the streets feeling like somebody else.

Tord hopes that Tom doesn’t recognize him, doesn’t see him crawling back to Blue Leader the way he promised himself he wouldn’t -- he just wanted to be another face in the crowd, another wide-eyed citizen waiting for their leader to come from the heavens and guide them. He ditches his red hoodie permaently for his black highschool coat that had always been a bit too long for him, bleaches his hair lighter from where it had been dark brown before, changes his image and hopes and prays that he can just be Somebody Else.

(It hurts, of course, to lose what feels like his entire past in one impulsive day, but Tord pushes it to the back of his mind. He doesn't recognize himself in the mirror when he comes home from his first day out, and he can't decide whether that's a good thing or not.) 

Blue Leader becomes a household name. Tord hears him whispered about in the dark underbelly of the city, his teachings passed under tables and behind closed doors. He pretends to be blackout drunk to eavesdrop on conversations about illicit weapons deals, of hidden motivations, of the swelling ranks of people willing to follow Tom to hell and back. Tord listens and watches and waits until-

\---

Tom stands on the edge of a statue’s pedestal like he belonged there instead, the crowd as thick as sardines standing around him, listening, watching, wide-eyed in the February sunshine, a sea of whispers melting together into one consciousness-

Tord is on the edge of the crowd. He can barely hear Tom as he preaches to the most willing crowd Tord’s ever seen. Out of the corner of his eye, there is the sleek gleam of police cars as they pull up to the edge of the whole affair, officers circling the people like vultures, waiting for the great Blue Leader to make a mistake.

Tom’s eyes narrow, and Tord knows that he’s seen them. He motions for the crowd to quiet down, answering the relentless hail of questions thrown after him one after the other after the other, and finally Tord sees Tom’s metal arm glint in the sunshine as he throws it in the air. The crowd whoops in response, fists and hats and voices going flying-

The police close in like hawks and Tord sees the hint of a smirk on Tom’s face as he jumps off the dais and rushes away into the city, his two commanders close behind him, knowing that they’ve outstayed their welcome. The crowd is slow to react, the officers slower, and Tom slips away like a fish out of the city’s hands again.

\---

There’s a strange tone that’s always infused in Tom’s speaking voice, some sort of authenticity that made him feel genuine and _real_ rather than just a face on the screen or a metal fist in the air and riots break out across Britain in his name.

The late-February crowd is turbulent, unsure, and Tord joins the uncertain ranks of people clamoring for a chance to listen to Blue Leader and ask him questions and question themselves. Tord watches someone next to him slip a hand into their pocket, pulling out a Swiss Army knife and unsheathing it slowly, and Tord doesn’t even take the time to _think_ about his actions before his hand is balled into a fist. He throws a punch and the man’s eyes widen but he launches himself forwards with his knife-

The man is on the ground, now, and Tord’s hand is clutching his cheek. The crowd descends into chaos. Tord whips around but Tom and his commanders are nowhere to be seen and he has to fight his way through the surging sea of people to his car.

His heart is racing and his knuckles are pulsing and bruising and his fingers come away from his face sticky with blood. Adrenaline courses through him and his hands almost shake too badly to start the car.

Tord goes to the next speech with his knuckles wrapped tightly in bandages.

\---

Tom is alone, for once, his voice frosty and his eyes cold. News stations circle the scene like vultures. The people are quiet as Blue Leader speaks of the injustices in society, speaks about the government’s flaws and how to fix them, and Tord feels hope start to rise in his chest but there is a sudden scuffle in the middle of the crowd and Tom pauses in confusion-

The first gunshot is _loud_ and the crowd screams and scatters and Tom has a hand to his shoulder, hissing in pain as he fumbles for his phone in his pocket. The second one misses and Tom’s jumped off the park bench for cover-

Tord and the man, lining up for his third shot, lock eyes.

There is suddenly an arm around his neck and a gun to his back and he and the stranger are left in the middle of the deserted park, Tom looking at the two of them in shock. Police sirens wail in slow-motion from too far away. Tord realizes that yes, he was about to die for Blue Leader. He was about to do what he had condemned and _die for Blue Leader_.

(“Vær trygg og vel,” Paul says, and there’s a sudden stabbing in Tord’s heart as he realizes what he was missing: that old concrete apartment roof, his garishly red walls, his late-night movies with Paul and Patryck, he's sacrificed them all for a gun to his back and nothing but blue, blue, that fucking suffocating blue-)

“Let him go,” Tom says, voice still steady despite the bullet lodged in his shoulder. His speaking voice is gone, replaced by a voice overtaken by pure- pure _exhaustion_. Tord is taken aback.

“I won’t have you spreading lies in my city,” the man replies, the barrel of the gun digging harder into Tord’s back and he knows it’s going to bruise there in the morning (if there _is_ another morning).

“I’m not-”

“It’s you or one of your followers, _Blue Leader_ ,” the man spits, and Tord _recognizes_ that viciousness -- he had heard it in his own voice, all those years ago, when Tom had first knocked on his door and left his guitar in the hall-

Tom turns, finally _looking_ at Tord, and brief recognition, something like _fear_ and _fury ,_ flashes in his eyes. Tord is paralyzed as Tom’s hands drop to his sides, the man shifting the gun away from his back to take aim at Blue Leader, who looks so tired, tired, _tired_ -

Tord whips his elbow back and hits the man squarely in his nose and he drops to the ground and there’s a loud, loud _BANG_ but it _isn’t the stranger’s gun_ and Tord’s head whips around to see _Tom_ , breathing harshly, a smoking pistol clutched tightly in his white-knuckled hands. The man’s face pales rapidly and his mouth is open, gasping for air like a drowning fish, as he bleeds out. Red (his favorite color) blossoms in the stranger’s chest and a blank look is in his rapidly-graying eyes and Tom rushes over to Tord-

“We need to go,” Tom hisses, dragging Tord behind him. His hand is clamped around Tord’s wrist. Tord feels like he’s about to pass out but he can’t stop following Tom, he has a body count now, he helped Tom _kill somebody_ -

Tord’s feet suddenly refuse to move. He doubles over, his vision blurring and something tearing apart in his chest and he had never thought that -- he had never thought Tom -- he never thought _Tom would_ -

(So the rumors were right, Tord thinks,  the only coherent thought he can pull from his tangled mind. So the rumors of guns under their coats and knives in their boots and too-wide, too-wicked smiles were right in the end.)

“Come on,” Tom whispers fiercely, pulling Tord behind him. “We have to _go_. I’m going to call Edd and Matt-”

“You killed him,” Tord chokes out. “You-”

“He killed himself.” Tom says it without missing a beat, yanking the two of them into the shadows of an alleyway. His phone is smeared in blood as he struggles to hit the numbers on the keypad. “He shot himself when you hit him. Do you understand, Tord?”

Someone picks up, and Tom engages in a rapid conversation that Tord can’t quite make out past the ringing in his ears and the pounding of his chest. He killed somebody. There's blood on his hands, now. There's blood on his hands and he rubs them uselessly on his jeans like he is Lady Macbeth, praying to some false god for forgiveness, _out, damned spot, I say - !_

“They’re coming,” Tom says, breaking into his thoughts. Tom sinks to the ground with a groan and a wince, blood starting to leak out between his fingers where he’s clutching his shoulder. Tord’s wrist still has the phantom feeling of Tom’s hand gripping it like a vice.

“I killed him,” Tord says, hollowly.

“He killed _himself_ ,” Tom repeats, the same vicious tone that was in the shooter’s voice suddenly creeping into his. “Do you _understand_ , Tord?”

Tord nods mutely. He tries to stop himself from clawing at the imaginary blood that stains his palms his favorite color.

\---

One of the commanders -- Matt, he thinks -- calls a delivery place and hands Tord twenty dollars and tells him to answer the door when the food arrives, before hastily excusing himself to the bathroom, where Tom and the other commander are trying to pull the bullet out of Tom’s shoulder. He hears them whispering in the other room -- the wound was shallow, the bullet would come out without any major issues, Tom would live and have full movement in his arm and hand and didn’t need another prosthetic. They call it a miracle, they call Tom a _miracle_.

The news drones on in the background while Tord paces, waiting for the delivery man. There's surprisingly little footage of the incident; the television reporters had scattered at the first gunshot, and seeing the incident through blurry phone cameras _did_ make it seem like Tord had accidentally shot the man in self-defense.

Tord understood the story -- the lie. If it was ever revealed that Tom shot him, it would be a liability. Tord’s real testimony would be a liability.

(He doubted, somehow, that he would leave their apartment alive.)

An hour passes. Their food comes, and Tord pays. The man offhandedly remarks that Tord looks like he had seen a ghost, and Tord doesn’t bother to reply before slamming the door.

The takeout is cold and Tord is half-asleep, drowsing on the couch, before Tom and his two men stagger out of the bathroom and crash into their seats next to the kitchen table. Tom is in short sleeves, gauze and bandages wrapped around his wound; his metal hand is detached and put at his side, while he eats ravenously with his good one. It briefly flashes in Tord’s dazed mind that he hadn’t seen Tom in anything more revealing than his hoodie or coat in years.

He dimly registers one of the two commanders whisper something to Tom and get up from the table, returning with thick blankets and throwing them over Tord to protect him from the early March cold. He’s out in minutes.

\---

(they let him stay -- or rather, they tell him to stay -- while they address the repercussions of What Had Happened.

tord learns their names quickly. there is edd, at tom’s left hand, who is as sweet and as kind and as warm as a man that is willing to be a weapon at tom’s side can be; he waxes poetic about art history and keeps a stash of coca-cola in the fridge that nobody else is allowed to touch. on tom’s metallic right is matt, who would carry around full-length mirrors if it wasn’t too inconvenient for him and hoards odd knickknacks that edd and tom are constantly throwing out.

they were certainly more tolerable than tom, tord decides. even despite his injury, the great blue leader is absent from the house more days than not, while edd and matt manage the public. when tord asks edd and matt about where tom goes off to, they just sigh, saying that blue leader was reckless, that he had no sense of self-preservation or his body's limits or really any identity outside of his goals and beliefs-

before they quickly shut themselves up and hastily excuse themselves to their work.)

\---

“You bleached your hair,” Tom says, startled, when he gets home one night with a bag full of what sounds like clinking glass bottles.

“What?” Tord looks up from his phone. He discreetly hides the number of missed calls and unread texts he has from Paul and Patryck.

“I didn’t notice. Your roots are showing.”

“I’ve had it bleached since I got here.”

“Oh,” Tom says, pulling out vodka bottles from his bag. “I didn’t notice,” he repeats, uselessly.

Television ads drone on. Tom cracks open two bottles, beckoning Tord over and offering him a drink. Tord hesitates, for a minute, before sitting across the table from Tom and taking a sip. Smirnoff, as always. Tom’s favorite brand.

“I wasn’t sure if you’d really come,” Tom admits, breaking the silence. “I didn’t think you liked me very much.”

“I don’t,” Tord mutters. “I don’t think Edd or Matt would let me leave even if I wanted to.”

Tom laughs. “Either way, I’d like to take you to one of my speeches soon. I’d like to let you go alone, but I think you’d prefer some company.” There’s a thinly-veiled threat in his tone that Tord picks up on immediately. “If you’re going to stay, you might as well know a bit about what I’m fighting for-”

“I already know,” Tord breaks in, and Tom pauses.

“You do?”

“I’ve gone already.”

Tom’s oil-spill eyes light up in excitement. “You have! That makes things easier.” His metal fingers click rhythmically against the table.

“I remember what you said to me, too.” Tord tips the bottle back, punctuating his words. “Change is- it’s what I came here for, Tom.”

“If you’re willing to learn, I’m willing to teach. I mean, you remember the past, I'm sure-”

“You tried to kill me.”

(And that was the crux of the matter, wasn’t it.)

Tord takes some kind of vague pleasure in the way Tom freezes, like a deer in the headlights. “It was for the greater good,” he says quietly. He puts down his bottle.

“So the ends justify the means, min gamle venn?”

“I- at the moment, they did.” Tom’s fingers tap faster, a constant clack-clack-clack of claws scratching at Tord’s skull. He picks his words carefully. “You were going to stop me, so-”

“So you tried to kill me.” Tom’s relaxed posture stiffens, at that, and Tord almost wants to grin the way Tom did that day.

“You weren’t going to get out of my way. I had to solve the problem myself.”

“I was your _problem_.”

“What else could you be?” Tom’s dropped his facade completely, his shoulders sharp and posture tense as he stares daggers into Tord, Tord meeting his gaze with nothing like _fear_ and something like _fury_ behind his eyes. “I was trying to do what was right-”

“ _Right_ ,” Tord says, incredulously. “Hurting me was _right_. Forcing me out of the house-”

“That was your own choice-”

“You cannot honestly believe that _any_ of that was my fault,” Tord seethes, standing up suddenly. “Thomas, you cannot _honestly believe_ that _any_ of that was my fault.”

“What do you want from me?” Tom’s metal hand clangs harshly on the table, and he pushes himself out of his chair to meet Tord’s eyes. “An apology? Some admission of guilt? Because I’m _sorry_ , Tord, but now I’m offering you a chance-”

“Offering _me_ a chance? I should be the one-”

“I want-”

“And _I_ want some semblance of _remorse_ !” Tord slams his hand on the table. “Faen, Tom! You torture me for months, force me out of my own _house_ then try to _kill me_ , and now that I’ve almost taken a bullet for you I’m trapped at this shitty apartment-”

“Do you want another sorry? Because I’m _sorry_ , Tord. I’m fucking sorry and now I’m trying to _fix it_ and I want you to at least _try_ -”

“And you just expect things to go back to the way they were before? Like nothing had-”

“ _Yes!_ ” Tom deflates, suddenly, the exhaustion that had been so prevalent in his tone ever since he got shot crashing back into his voice like a tidal wave. He sinks back into his chair, the vodka forgotten. Tord’s blood rushes through his head and his hands are white from how tightly he’s clenching them and he wants so desperately to recreate the situation from months before, tell Tom to leave or just _leave_ himself-

Tord sits back down.

“What else is there to do?” Tom asks, avoiding Tord's gaze and staring off at a point in the distance beyond him. “I figured the debt had been paid.”

“An eye for an eye.”

“You-” Tom gestures vaguely in Tord’s direction- “took my arm and the right side of my face, and I took your house and almost your life. I thought it was done. I thought _I_ was done.”

The kitchen light shines fluorescent white as the sun sinks past their windowsill, leaving Tom’s face older, colder, sharper, than Tord thinks he’s ever seen it before. His dark burn scars stand in stark contrast to his ink-black eyes and his pale skin while his artificial arm gleams in the artificial light, anxiously tap-tap-tapping on the table like it was _real_ -

“Vi er veldig like,” Tord murmurs, finally.

“Så vi er.”

“I don’t know if there’s anywhere else for me to go.”

“Then stay,” Tom offers. He holds out his vodka expectantly.

(Tord hesitates, remembering his promise to Paul, remembering how he had immediately broken it, knowing that if he does this then Paul and Patryck and his _real_ old friends will have lost two traitors rather than just one. He wants to apologize his heart out. He wants them to know how much they matter and the way his heart feels like it’s being torn out, leaving them behind, but how can he really say he cares when there are dozens of missed calls and unread texts on his phone and he’s already gone?)

The bottles clink together loudly, in a silent toast, and Tom tips his head back and drinks. Tord breathes in deeply, praying to a god that he doesn’t believe in, before doing the same.

\---

Tom keeps Tord close by his side; so close, Tord can almost believe that he’s living under the old proverb of “keep your friends close, but your enemies -- closer.”

He gets Tord a coat and a pistol and takes him into the back streets of the city, into nightclubs pulsing in bright neons and glowing lights, brings him into secret meetings behind locked doors, teaches him how to speak and how to shoot and the two of them walk side-by-side in the brisk London winds as winter turns to spring.

It’s -- different, to say the least, standing at the head of the crowd rather than simply being a part of it. There’s a certain intoxicating power in the knowledge that there is a gun hidden under the blue folds of his jacket, in the knowledge that he could speak a word and the people would _listen_ , but he leaves those responsibilities up to Blue Leader and his silver tongue and listens and watches and waits for trouble in the crowds. He sees himself on the news -- they call him one of the commanders, they put his picture next to Edd’s and Matt’s and Tom’s and Tord feels _powerful_.

(There’s a sickness, though, that rises in his throat every time he checks his phone. By the end of the week, Tom’s offered to break it for him, and there’s no hesitation this time when Tord accepts. The phone turns to black shards and sparking wires under Tom’s booted heel in the London streets and Tord has never felt lighter.)

There’s more violence. Riots increase. Tom takes Tord out of the city and to the factories to help arm the workers for their coming strikes. Tord helps Tom smear makeup on his face and put in contacts to look like somebody else every time they go out into the city for anything other than speeches. Tord bandages his knuckles and gets into fistfights and comes home with bruises on his face and knifemarks on his hands.

London is prettier at night, Tord decides, with its pinpricks of yellow light creeping up the sides of buildings and alighting on its ceilings and the fake sense of peace that sinks into him when he’s standing outside of locked doors and playing lookout at three in the morning. In the day, there are brilliant displays of color at parks and statues and crowds of surging people surrounding the steps of museums as Tom speaks, there are blue coats and his own gray eyes surveying the roaring crowd around him, looking for danger, for any signs of trouble-

At night, there are just quiet kitchen conversations, the clacking of computer keys as they write speeches and newspaper articles, there is Tord teaching Edd, Matt, and Tom how to bandage their hands (just in case) because in the end, it would be better to have bruised knuckles rather than broken ones.

\---

“I need a drink,” Tom sighs.

“You always do.”

“The crowd was difficult this time. I thought for sure there was gonna be a fight.”

“It’s cold. People were trying to get home. You were holding them up.”

Tom hums lowly, under his breath, wrapping his coat around himself more tightly. His burn scars contrast harshly with his pale face, turning red in the biting wind.

There’s a gunshot halfway home that whizzes past Tord’s eyes and leaves harsh ringing in his ears and Tom doesn’t hesitate before pulling out his pistol and firing a shot into the alleyway that finds nothing but the ground. Tord grabs Tom and yanks him flush against the wall.

“They were going for you,” Tom whispers harshly, trying to look back into the alley. “Who-”

“We need to go,” Tord insists, instead, grabbing Tom’s wrist and trying to pull him away. “You got shot once, already-”

Tom yanks his wrist out of Tord’s grasp and whips around the wall, firing another shot that finds its target, this time. There’s a muffled scream and suddenly someone on Tord with a knife and Tord has nothing but his pistol jammed in his belt under his coat and his bandaged knuckles, but he breaks one of his hands out of the stranger’s grasp and clocks him in the jaw-

Another _bang_ , and someone Tord can’t see falls with a heavy _thump_ and the man with the knife staggers backwards with a hand at his jaw. Tord’s hands shake as he pulls out his pistol and struggles to aim it with his freezing hands. There’s a cutting sensation in his arm and he faintly registers that _oh, I got cut already_ -

“Tord!” The man is _right there_ and Tord’s gun is hit away, clattering to the ground several feet away. Tord balls up his fist again and hits another punch that leaves his hand stinging before stumbling backwards, searching blindly along the ground for his gun-

There’s a _bang, bang, bang_ and loud stomping and Tord looks up only to block the knife coming for his face with his arm and it fucking _hurts_ , blood rushes out of his wound as the man yanks his knife out and Tom is blurry in the background aiming his gun and the man’s knife glints again and this time Tord can’t stop it-

Time stops.

There’s an excruciatingly white-hot pain that lances across his eyes and he’s _screaming_ , covering his face with his hands, and a gunshot echoes in his ears as something like hot flesh and heavy bones hits the ground with a loud _thump_ and a sob and a scream. Tord kicks out instinctively and his foot hits a warm body and he stomps on whatever was in front of him until he’s sobbing himself. Another shot, then silence, then-

Tom has rushed over to him, whispering his name in his ears, a constant rush of “Tord, Tord, listen to me, _Tord_ -” and Tord can almost believe that there was genuine concern in his tone but Tom wasn’t supposed to be anything more than the impassive face and stone mask but here he was, prying Tord’s hands away from his eyes-

“I’m calling Edd and Matt.” Tom exhales shakily. “Are you listening? I’m calling Edd and Matt. They’re coming to pick you up,” Tom says, and there’s something almost like _fear_ in his voice, something that Tord hasn’t heard in years and years and years.

“It hurts,” Tord chokes out, the only words he can force through his gritted teeth. The numbness and the crushing pain of the house was _nothing_ compared to this electrocuting pain in his head and _he can’t see_. Tom is there, shushing Tord, helping him stagger to the curbside and Tord’s sobbing has died away into just muffled whimpers, now. One of Tom’s cold hands is on his own and the other is secure on his shoulder-

“I didn’t shoot in time,” Tom rambles. “Listen- I need you to listen. I didn’t shoot in time. I thought things would go differently, I didn’t realize you didn’t have your gun and I couldn’t get a clear shot with him grabbing you like that. I’m sorry- listen, Edd and Matt are coming-”

“It’s fine,” Tord hears himself choke out from a million miles away. “Jeg tilgir deg, jeg tilgir-”

“Du vil være i orden, venn,” Tom says, almost trying to comfort himself, and Tord dimly registers that it was the first time Tom had called him a friend and probably _meant_ it.

He’s out cold from shock before Edd and Matt pull up to the curb.

\---

It’s a bit too much to take in at first.

Tord is lying in half-cleaned sheets in their apartment, listening to Edd and Matt talk about his _penetrating trauma_ and _globe ruptures_ and all sorts of medical jargon that Tord doesn’t understand and he pretends to ignore the fact that he still can’t see, even when his bandages are being changed. He pretends not to hear Edd and Matt whispering about the chance of permanent blindness, the chances of infection, how Blue Leader was absolutely _furious_ . He hopes for a miracle, he hopes he can _be_ a miracle.

He fights through it all, a pale ghost of red in those hastily-cleaned sheets, and is out of bed by the end of the week despite Edd and Matt’s protests. His eyes still hurt and he has to keep bandages wrapped around them but he walks down the apartment hallway anyway, Edd guiding him to the shower.

“Blue Leader- he’s been busy,” Edd mumbles. “He’s- Tord, I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“You know,” Edd says, evading the question. “He hasn’t been home. Controlling the public, giving speeches -- you know what Blue Leader does, you’ve known him longer than I have-”

“But what are _you_ sorry for?” Tord persists. “Call him Tom.”

“What? I couldn’t.” Edd’s hand shifts around Tord’s arm, and he almost pauses in their walk, clearly taken aback. “Blue Leader-”

“I want you to call him Tom,” Tord insists. “What are you sorry for?”

Edd doesn’t respond to that, and the two of them walk in unwilling silence to the bathroom.

“Tom’s very angry,” Edd finally admits, when they get to the door. “He’s -- I’ve never seen him so angry, and now he’s gone, working on things that he won’t even tell _us_ about…”

“I thought he trusted you a lot.”

“He does! Matt and I!” Edd hurriedly protests. “It’s just -- sometimes, I wish he would tell us more,” he sighs. “I don’t want you to feel like anything’s your fault. I’m sorry.”

“What do you mean-”

“Just yell for Matt when you’re done.” Edd cuts Tord off, and his warm hand is gone suddenly and Tord’s left alone in the bathroom.

\---

“Tord,” Tom croons, the door creaking behind him. His voice comes like a splash of cold water, and Tord sits up straight in bed.

“Tom.”

“I’m working on something for your eyesight.”

“I’m grateful,” Tord says, voice dripping in sarcasm. “What is it going to do to me this time? Where have you been?”

“You’re the same as always, Tord.” The fear that had charged Tom’s voice last time they had spoken was gone, replaced by his everpresent even tone and flat voice and Tord wants to see Tom’s stupid facial expression, if he was smirking or frowning or upset at all-

“I got you something, while you wait.” Tom seems too self-satisfied for it to be just a gift. There is the shifting of fabric, clothing, and something is in Tord’s arms.

“What is this?” Tord feels it -- it feels like cloth, there’s a zipper -- a windbreaker.

“I found them,” Tom whispers, low, and it hits Tord like a bus.

“Found- who,” Tord asks, even though the two of them _know_ that it’s a formality, and it’s sickening the way Tord humors Tom anyway. Why was he still _holding_ a dead man’s jacket-

“Consider it an accident.” Tom says, and Tord can hear Tom’s grin in his voice. “I’ll be back with a real gift later.”

He gently shuts the door behind him and Tord throws the windbreaker across the room but there’s already blood, slick and heavy, on his hands, and while Edd’s apology suddenly makes sense he wishes that he wasn’t the one who had to live with it.

(For a moment, it flashes through Tord’s mind that he never should’ve become indebted to Tom, that he should’ve just taken the bullet through his back and been done with it, rather than let Tom drag him through hell and back and convince him to be another weapon at his side with just a vodka bottle and an argument and a crushed phone-

But god, he knows that he’s already in too deep.)

\---

Those few weeks of blindness feel like hell.

Tord plugs himself into the audio channel of the apartment -- he desperately listens to anything he can hear through the thin walls of his room, picking up on Tom’s distinct clicking, confident walk, hearing Edd and Matt arguing in the adjacent room, contrasting the news reporter’s hurried diction with Tom’s languid tones. He asks for a radio from Edd and Matt in the middle of the second week, and is awoken the next morning by the familiar sounds of a crackling newscast in his room.

Tord’s accident is not brought up again, and soon, he manages to find his own way around the apartment, Edd and Matt wisely keeping their helping hands to themselves. Tom has disappeared, of course, leaving Tord to his own devices, but it wasn’t like a blind man could make it out of their secluded apartment or help the great Blue Leader watch out for trouble during speeches.

Tom is gone more often than ever before; when he does come home, it’s late and he always leaves before sunrise. He catches up with Edd and Matt in those brief hours -- something about influence, something about protests, something about _ag fanacht sábháilte go háirithe nuair a fhaigheann an foréigean dona_ and _ne pas prendre trop de risques_ and when the three of them inevitably get down to rapid chatting in a mix of English and their native tongues, Tord gives up on trying to eavesdrop.

Matt tells Tord in whispered tones that Blue Leader, _their_ Blue Leader, was going to perform a miracle for Tord. Edd says that he could’ve never dreamed of something like this being possible. By the end of the last few weeks of darkness, Tord feels like his chest is about to burst with anticipation and dread and fear all at once because Tom locking himself away to work on something could never be a good omen.

\---

It comes to an end, a _real_ end, in humid July.

Blue Leader’s distinctive step is absent for days on end, the door never swinging open and late-night conversations never keeping Edd and Matt awake and Tord doesn’t say anything even when he notices the tension rising to a breaking point in the cramped apartment. Edd fills out paperwork with a certain harshness that was never there before, while Matt paces the halls and spends longer than usual finishing his morning routines in the bathroom. The tension rises and rises until it all comes to a crashing halt when Tom waltzes in one Saturday afternoon with an audible smile in his voice and _something_ in his hands-

“Edd, Matt, Tord,” Tom greets. Tord hears Edd’s sharp inhale, Matt’s chair squeaking backwards as he gets up, something distinctly metal clinking in Tom's hands.

“You’ve been gone for days,” Tord says, refusing to acknowledge the elephant in the room. He turns the channel on the radio, half-listening to the advertisements.

“I’ve been working.”

“For almost a week straight?”

“I have to be there, they’re organizing strikes up in-”

“Tom!” Edd scolds, and Tom laughs, and that’s when the dread starts to build because Tom _rambling_ was so uncharacteristic as to be almost foreboding-

“-and I had to make something for you,” Tom finishes, a wicked grin in his voice and probably painted across his face as well. He takes Tord by the arm. “Please, Tord, come with me.”

Tord uneasily follows Tom to the bedroom, sitting down on the edge of the bed. There is something else in the room, whirring quietly, and Tord can almost dismiss it as a laptop starting up but he’s never seen Tom cart around a _laptop_ with him.

“I hope Edd and Matt haven’t spoiled this for you, yet.” Tord’s senses are working in hyperdrive as he tries to figure out what Tom is holding -- he’s never felt dread creep so insidiously into him, he was at peace only seconds before but now there’s a cold rock in the pit of his stomach and something gnawing at his chest and he knows that Matt’s supposed _miracle_ was about to come true.

“Spoiled what?” Tord tries to keep his tone as level as Tom’s.

“I’m going to fix your eyes.”

The sickening feeling in Tord’s stomach gets worse. The machine whirs louder, as if getting started up again. “I need you to trust me, Tord.”

“Trust-”

“It’s going to hurt, but only for a bit.” Tom takes Tord’s arm, pushing up the sleeve, and wraps what feels like a heart monitor around it. The accompanying beeps ring out across the bedroom’s dead silence from somewhere to his left and Tord realizes that it really didn’t matter what he said, Tom was going to do _something_ to his already-ruined eyes, and his heart-rate rapidly picks up-

“What are you doing?” Tom chuckles, and Tord knows that he’s lost their little game already.

“I told you, I made something for you.” There is a sort of quiet pride in Tom’s voice, that Tord had only picked up on once before, when Tom had almost _killed him_ with the robot that he built. Dread rises in his throat. There’s a prick inside Tord's elbow and that was an IV needle and Tord hears the _thing_ in Tom’s hands whir louder-

“What did you make?” Tord asks, even though he’s not entirely sure he wants the answer.

“A visor, min venn. I told you, I would bring you another gift, and I don’t back out of promises.”

“I’m not sure-”

“Do you trust me?”

The good mood is vanished from Tom’s voice. His tone cuts rather than caresses, and Tord is backed into a corner, picking between two poisons. The _visor_ whirs and Tord laces his hands together tightly and wonders if he has a choice.

“I don’t think-”

“It’s a yes or no question,” Tom coldly interrupts.

(There’s the unsaid threat that _there was only one answer_ and there is a cold gun at Tord’s back and a broken phone under Tom’s heel. He is the metal between the hammer and the anvil, running from the devil to the deep blue sea. He had prayed to all manner of false gods and deities to avoid Charybdis, only to have run into Scylla at the end of it all-

It comes to him, then, that it was too late. He was being boiled alive and at this point, there wasn’t a goddamn thing he could do about it.)

“Sånn er det,” Tord murmurs. “I hope it works.”

And apparently that was all that Tom needed because there is suddenly cold metal around his eyes, something clipped around the back of his head, something white-hot shooting through his head and eyes and a blinding light is all he can see and Tord _screams_ , but Tom’s cold hands are on his shoulders and hands and arms, yelling at him, hushing him, and the bedroom door bangs open-

He faintly registers a pinprick in his neck, a burning in his already-empty eyes, and he falls falls falls until Tom’s voice fades away and that glaring white is a softer velvet black and he can’t think for the pain in his head and the rapid loss of consciousness-

\---

The burning is more tolerable when he wakes up again.

Tom is at his bedside, explaining everything in technicalities, dissecting every second of his experience with science, telling Tord that it hurt because the smooth glass visor was connecting its own wires with Tord’s nerve endings and he would see white for a while as the technology adjusted to his cells but since his body wasn’t actively rejecting it yet, he would probably be fine, able to take it off whenever he wanted like he was just wearing- a visor, the initial adjustment was just rough-

Tord is grateful when Edd gently tells Tom to leave, to let Tord rest, he had heard enough. Tord was probably dealing with a terrible headache and he needed to either sleep or eat something solid rather than just listen to Tom ramble on and on about his miracle, about how if it worked Tord would really be a _miracle_ -

…

It’s a bit too much to take in, at first.

Tord would run his hands around the edges and over the screen of the visor, feeling its cool metal and smooth glass and realizing that it was a part of him, now. He was partly artificial. He entertains the thoughts of finally being officially part of the Blue Army, since he had a body part made by the great Blue Leader himself, and he wonders again if he was in too deep, the frog boiling in the water that Tom had prepared specially for him-

Matt and Edd visit, sometimes. They keep Tord entertained with stories about the speeches that Blue Leader gave, they turn the radio channels for him when his eyes hurt too badly for him to even try to move, and Tord has nothing but time to listen and think and try to reconcile the image of the angelic prophet Tom who had brought revolution to the streets of London and performed a miracle for Tord’s eyesight with the man who had almost killed him two years ago.

\---

(meanwhile, his eyes heal and mend, and soon he’s seeing movement. he turns towards matt every time he walks into the room and looks straight at edd’s face every time he sits down next to tord and those few times that tom shows up, tord pretends not to see him, but there is a definite blurry form of black and brown and blue standing at his bedside.

tord sits at a homely wooden table, the chair under him creaking with its obvious age. the room is small and cozy despite the windows opening to the sight of a desolate winter and a forest of dead trees. inside, it is warm, and the fireplace burns comfortingly while his dead mother cuts vegetables with an exquisitely decorated knife in the chair across from him.

“ah, min kjære,” his mother bemoans, while the golden blade casts bright reflections across the table and on the wall. “you shouldn’t have gotten this for me! it was too much, you must’ve given an arm and a leg!”

“it was nothing,” tord hears himself saying from a million miles away, but the knife looks desperately expensive. there’s a strange lightness in his chest, and he looks down, to see his whole torso savaged, black feathers and scraps of metal lining the insides, like he had been torn apart by carrion vultures and hastily put back together again with rusty nails and scraps of foil.

“du bør ikke ofre så mye,” his mother scolds in a heavy accent, the knife chop-chop-chopping away at the vegetables. “it is not good for you.”

“i never learn, i guess,” tord laughs. his whole chest feels like it’s being torn apart because of it. something burns behind his eyes when he rubs them, his hands coming away sticky with blood, morphing from five fingers to six to four to seven-

“vær trygg og vel,” his mother says, but the voice is distinctly paul’s and he’s home again in his garish red box apartment, blue leader putting his missing organs back in his body and apologizing constantly while paul and patryck bandage him up and promise that he’d be fine-

and he wakes up with a jolt of pain behind his missing eyes, wanting to cry his heart out but knowing that his tear ducts had been ruined. his mother had been dead for years and the winter had seemed so bleak-

tord sits awake, shaking, clenching his fingers so tightly together they turned white, until he realizes that he can see his hands in crisp form and shape and color like his eyes had never been gone in the first place.)

\---

“It works.”

Tom visibly relaxes in his seat at the kitchen table, his typical wicked grin settling on his face again. Edd looks relieved as all hell and Matt smiles. Tord is out of his room for the first time in days and -- it’s odd, really, seeing Matt’s corn flakes in their normal shade of yellow and Edd’s disarmingly warm smile and Tom’s metallic blue hand, tap-tap-tapping on the kitchen table like nothing had changed at all.

“Jeg er glad,” Tom says.

“I didn’t think you’d be.”

“We aren’t all out to get you,” Tom says, languidly. “You’re Blue Army now, just like the rest of us, right?”

It hits Tord like a bus, that morning, with his new visor and his new sight and the headband’s tension at the back of his head-

He was one of them now. He wasn’t garish red, he was bleached hair and London nights and blood on his hands and he briefly wonders how Paul and Patryck are doing, how sickened they must’ve felt when they realized they had _two_ traitors in the family-

“Så jeg er,” Tord murmurs, interrupting his own thoughts because it didn’t matter anymore.

Tord puts a slice of bread in the toaster, and the morning goes on. It comes out black a few minutes later, and Tom has the audacity to laugh.

“Så du er!” Tom smirks, and Tord wonders if there really was anywhere else for him to be than at the right hand of Blue Leader.

* * *

_vi. ce qui se passe après_

 

Tom is dressed plainly.

He’s in his standard uniform -- his collared shirt under his dark blue jacket, the gold buttons keeping it closed gleaming in the pink sunrise that washes over Blue Leader like a gentle ocean, that softens his harsh face and glints off his blue arm. The burn scars painted over the left side of his face are drowned out in soft roses.

“Back to our old vices, Tord?” Tom sits down next to Tord, on the roof of the apartment, letting his feet hang off the edge. His legs swing back and forth and hit the building, the dull sound echoing through the muffled morning air.

“Takk for sist,” Tord replies, in his tobacco-rough half-rasp that had followed him around since he was twenty. He take a drag from his cigarette. “You have not been around lately.”

“It’s only been a few weeks. I’ve been gone for longer.”

“Eight years, before.” The concrete roof is cold, and Tord pulls his blue jacket around himself more tightly. Tom laughs, and the sound breaks that dull silence like a whirling harpoon and the city awakens with car horns and yelling and the sudden raucousness of the morning rush.

“Ah, min gamle venn. Things haven’t changed, have they?”

“I can’t say they have.” Tord’s vision goes fuzzy, and he adjusts his visor before everything comes back in crisp sharpness again. “Would you mind fixing this later? It’s been glitching more often than usual.”

“Anything for you, Tord.”

Tord scoffs at Tom’s fake groveling, turning his attention back to his cigarette. The buildings below them stretch out in silvery gray as the sun makes its way above the horizon. He wonders how he managed to get here, sitting next to Blue Leader, quoted as having changed the world despite being gone five days out of seven. He wonders...

“Where’s Edd and Matt?” Tord asks.

“Gave them each a stack of paperwork.”

“So that you could come sit on the roof and watch the sunrise with me? Min venn, you really _are_ too kind.”

“I did my share last night,” Tom half-heartedly protests. “I’ll help them later. You got another cig?”

“Mm. Here.” The cigarettes and lighter change hands, and Tom lights one up, exhaling his share of smoke into the pink sky.

“You’d think I wouldn’t be handing a cigarette to someone who almost killed me before,” Tord remarks, offhandedly.

“Classic, stupid Tord, right?” Tom takes a drag. “I’ve saved you more than once, though.”

“Would you still?”

“Doubt it. You’re not that useful anymore.” Tom laughs. “What do you think?”

“Well,” Tord thinks, “I think that if I tried to jump off this building right now, you’d somehow find a way for me to survive.”

“We can try that.”

Tord scoffs, and Tom grins. His burn scars etch themselves deeper into his face as the sun escapes the wicked grasp of the earth. Tord rubs at where the visor is hooked into his skin.

“Would you do it all again?”

“A million times, if I had to.”

“Martyr me a million times,” Tord muses, half to himself. Tom doesn’t respond. Tord gets up, dropping his cigarette onto the floor and half-heartedly crushing it, a few dying embers still burning merrily in the cold. His coat tries to keep out the worst of the morning chill.

“When do you want me to adjust your visor?” Tom calls, turning towards Tord as he makes his way back towards the stairs.

“I will be home most of today. Just call.”

“Good.” Tom pauses, as if turning something over in his mind.

“Is there anything else?” The sun, now bright, washes over Tom’s face and glints off his arm and Tord is struck once again by the realization of how many people would be willing to follow Tom to their deaths.

(He knows, really, that he would follow Blue Leader there as well, if it came down to it. He knows that he’s willing to be martyred a million times for the good of them all.)

“I’ll be by later,” Tom says, finally, turning back towards the city skyline. “Ikke dø før du er død, Tord.”

“I’ll try my best.” Tord opens the door and ambles down the stairs, leaving Tom alone on the roof.

(The cigarette on the floor smolders, smolders, smolders-

Tom gets up, and he does not put it out. The city stretches ahead of him like an ocean, and he thinks about how things would’ve been if he had killed Tord fifteen years ago. He wondered if _he_ would be willing to heat the water again and again, over and over and over, cyclically, periodically, until it was almost comforting in its monotony-

…

The gray skyline doesn’t respond to his rhetorical, however, and Tom meditates on the dull roar of the city for a few minutes before he goes back inside. It was getting too cold and he was getting too busy to spend time doing nothing in the mornings.)

\---

_(There is a real end, later, far later, years and years and years later, but-_

_In the meantime: a switch is flipped, a fire burns, and smoke escapes a smokestack._

_In the meantime: a cigarette smolders, smolders, smolders on a concrete roof._

_In the meantime: a cold glass visor is adjusted in a room of a skyscraping apartment building._

_._

_._

_._

_A rhetorical: does the frog ever accept fate?_

_Another rhetorical: and if so, is it ever comforting?)_

**Author's Note:**

> so! this is what i've been working on. i've always liked the idea of blue leader and swapping the casts of eddsworld and i find the similarities between tom and tord (most prominently: their same cruelty and ability to laugh even when things are disastrous) interesting, so switching them seemed like a good way to explore both ideas.
> 
> and Wow, that idea exploded and now we're left with this. writing plot is difficult to me but this helped me get past a lot of my apprehension about it. i still dislike the pacing in some parts and the characterization in others (which i guess is a necessary thing i have to get over if i'm writing a Character Swap Au) but... i've worked on this for so long, i think it's reached a point where i'm as satisfied with it as i can be despite a lot of its flaws.
> 
> anyway! i hope you guys enjoyed reading. i'd be interested in writing more in this universe, but considering i've been working on this basically nonstop for the past month, i think i'm going to take a LONG break before i do. feel free to contact me @frightguard on tumblr if you'd like to talk, i have a lot of ideas about this universe and a lot of symbolism in this fic itself that i hope gets across!
> 
> some minor notes, in no particular order:  
> 1\. as usual, not written with a particular ship in mind, but i do see how it can be taken that way  
> 2\. i see tom and tord as fundamentally very similar (the want of change), but while tord is more passionate and direct in his actions, tom is far more manipulative and insidious in what he does  
> 3\. their home countries are as follows: tom is english, edd is french, matt is irish, tord is norwegian, paul is dutch, and patryck is polish. tom picks up languages very quickly and tord taught norwegian to paul, pat, and tom just to make it easier for him when he first met them and he wasn't entirely fluent in english yet  
> 4\. i don't know how technology works. don't ask me about the visor because i don't know.  
> 5\. when tord says "jeg er glad i deg" to paul, that's the first time he's ever said anything even close to "i love you" to somebody else  
> 


End file.
